"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me." ~ Batman Begins
I hate that quote. Sometimes, I get so tired of being praised for stuff that I do. It's so easy to look at stuff that people do and assume that it's who they are. Most of the time, it's probably not. If you were to ask random strangers on the street if they put their whole heart and soul into their job or weekly tasks at home/work, a large majority of them will probably say "no." We do our jobs because it pays the bills, it puts food on the table, it helps us save up for that big trip to the Bahamas. But rarely will you find people that truly love going into work on a Monday morning. Those people somehow have been blessed enough to find something to do that mirrors who they truly are.
I feel honored to be one of those people. Granted, sometimes when work is really crazy at the library, all I want to do is snuggle farther down into my comforter and ignore the daylight coming through the window. But most of the time I truly love getting to go to work each day. It's not always been like this. There were several years where all I wanted to do was work anywhere BUT at the library. But no matter how many job interviews I had, God never let me leave.
There was one time when He gave me a second part time job at my church's office. For three years I was part time library clerk, part time church office assistant. I love my church, I love my pastors, and I loved working in the office. But sometimes, I felt appreciated for the wrong things. "Great job on the bulletin, Sara!" "Love the look of the new directory!" "Wow, you figured out how to print out all those labels without having to type each one? That's amazing!" Now, I'm sure all those things were amazing to people whose knowledge of computers extend to email, social media, and solitaire; but for me, it was honestly a little boring. There was little to no creativity on my part: I was doing a task that needed to get done, and I felt almost anyone could've done it, but I was the one getting praised for it.
Think of something that is really easy for you to do, say, blinking, and then imagine someone telling you, "wow, I really love the way you blink your eyes, that's really impressive." That's how I felt about my work at church. I was being praised for something I did without effort and without heart, and it felt like other people were starting to be "define me" by it. The problem was, that's not who I am at all.
Two years ago this month, I stopped doing something that had defined me for 10+ years. When I was in high school, the youth pastor at the time and his wife were really instrumental in seeing the gifts in me that no one else could (mostly because I was shyly hiding in the back), and pulled me into youth leadership. After high school, I tried to leave Metro Youth...that lasted for maybe less than one semester. But when that pastor and his wife suddenly stopped working at church and moved to Texas two weeks later, I made an inner vow to never leave the teens at Metro like that. It hurt a lot of us; many of the kids stopped coming to youth group and even to church because of it. But I stayed on, because somehow between my junior year of high school and my freshman year of college I realized that I love working with teenagers. I love calling them out of their shells to become who God created them to be; I love laughing with them, crying with them, just being with them, really. And so for 10 years, that's what I did.
But three Octobers ago, I was challenged by God (through the voices of people wiser than me) to take a look at why I was still with Metro Youth. I had been getting restless, with both my jobs, with volunteering at church not just in the high school but in the nursery and on the audio/visual team for worship, with life in general. I broke into tears when a friend said to me, "Maybe you should stop working with Metro Youth." Because I didn't want to...and because I didn't want to admit to myself that he was right. I wrestled (boy did I wrestle!) with God for months, until I finally gave in and gave over my youth group to Him.
It was the most dreadful depressing summer I've had yet. I'd let go of my teens, but there wasn't anything yet to fill the void. I prayed and prayed, and cried when I saw my roommates leaving every Wednesday night for youth group, but I still didn't know why it was that God made me stop what I loved to do. Until a friend and co-worker at the library got a promotion at another branch. She had been our teen programmer, and once she left, they asked if I would fill in for her until they hired a new full-time person to take her place. And a thought I'd never imagined I'd think came into my head...What if I applied for the spot? Had you asked me two years previously, I would have scoffed and said, "yeah right!" But somehow this just made so much sense. I'd never worked a "full" 40 hour work week before; even with two jobs I was still under 35 hours a week. And I most definitely did not want to work full time at the library.
But God told me it was right. So I applied...and I got the job.
The first few months were a little hard, trying to figure out how to budget my time at the branch, figuring out all the duties that were suddenly my responsibility, and most importantly trying to figure out how to get teenagers to come to my programs! But after a while, I realized that I've found my niche. Suddenly, I had coworkers asking where I got my computer class lessons from, and the impressed surprise on their faces when I said I made it up myself was better than any compliment about the bulletins. I had two teens coming regularly to my programs...then three...now five or six, maybe twelve on a good movie night. My crazy ideas for teen programs have gotten noticed not just by other teen programmers at other branches, but by the administrative staff of the whole system (you haven't really lived until you've played life-sized Battleship or Monopoly!) I have moments of combined creativity with other equally brilliant coworkers, powwows that honestly are a little frightening, because the results are getting us noticed by other branches, by headquarters, by other library systems. And it's all so. much. FUN!!!
So, when I say I hate the quote from Batman, what I mean is that I hate it that the two concepts are separated. I do not want to be defined just by who I am "underneath", nor simply by what I "do". I want to be defined as a person who "DOES who she IS." When I finally go Home and get to really be held by my Father in Heaven, I want to be able to hear that from His lips; "Well DONE, My good and faithful servant."
"Make me a servant, humble and meek.
Lord let me lift up those who are weak.
And may the prayer of my heart always be:
Make me a servant, today."
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